The present invention relates to a cordless telephone, and more particularly, to a circuit and method for cutting off a speech path and converting to a standby state in a cordless telephone when either a speakerphone key is input or a busy tone is detected during a speakerphone speech mode.
The speakerphone function has been developed to provide telephone users with the ability to engage in a hands-free telephone conversation. That is, the speakerphone is generally coupled to a telephone line and is designed to allow the user to move freely while engaging in telephonic communication with another party. One earlier effort that discusses the speakerphone function is U.S. Pat. No. 5,396,550, assigned to the same assignee as the present invention.
In many conventional cordless telephones or general telephones, if a user desires to make or receive a telephone call using the speakerphone function, the user must first depress a speakerphone key on the keypad of the telephone terminal. Upon depression of the speakerphone key, the user can engage in a conversation with another party without having to speak into the telephone handset. Further, in order to return to a standby state after completion of a telephone conversation, the user must again depress the speakerphone key so that the speech path can be cut off.
When the user engages in a telephone conversation using the speakerphone function, he or she is generally moving around the office, or is in a location away from the telephone terminal. Therefore, since the user must again press the speakerphone key to cut off the speech path when the conversation is completed, the user is subjected to the inconvenience of having to interrupt his or her current activity and move to the telephone terminal to again press the speakerphone key. Moreover, in the event that the user forgets to again press the speakerphone key, the telephone remains in a speech mode. The present invention is directed towards solving this problem.